Has flashkit declined in popularity?

I dont want to be flamed.

I remember when flash 5 was out this place was buzzing, the coolsites forums, people doing wierd experiments and stuff. Dont get me wrong this is a busy place, but even from what i remember werehere and this board were both packed at the same time and it was really easy to learn from.

At the moment im noticing there is very little members browsing the forums like me.

Flash is always growing, so why does it seem there is less people around now than there used to be or it because its became so complex and devided , theres different forums on the web people visit?

I just wondered for curiosity!

fk is full fo kids and a whole lot of bs.. most the old members have either moved on or stopped posting as much.. i lurk thru but conversation isn't the same with alot of th eold tymers gone..

and those of us who still do experiments.. argo, etc don't post them on here. Everybody is being more secretive so they can try to make a buck out of it. There isn't much going on in this industry that is just out in the open.

I don't post any of my work here not in several years.

Just a theory, but maybe because Flash itself is nothing new. I mean you are correct it IS always growing, but it's not such a specialized medium anymore.... it's pretty much mainstream. Most large sites incorporate some kind of Flash in their design. I think Flash 4 or 5 was when it really broke mainstream being packaged with the main browsers, maybe coinciding with the peak of FlashKit you speak of.

Just saying the buzz around Flash itself maybe has died down a bit since Flash 5.

Anyways, what took you so long to join? :)

I have to agree on some parts.. there seems to be an element of "puberty" here...where comments lack constructive criticism, or things get personal, instead of helpful.

I have noticed the HELP forums are largely "run" by members helping and contributing... although I do some mods helping in fairness, just NOT like they used to (daily, throughout the day..etc)

I have also noticed a trend of people PMing me for help..instead of postig on the boards.. (which I feel takes away from the search resource)

I havent been any other places really as I still (im my eyes) see FLASHKIT as a place of high traffic...so I 'HOPE' my thread(s) get attention.....

Is Flashkit on a decline? I'd have to say yes... slightly.

But the whole Flash Community seems to be in a decline... it's all become Flash Commerce.

Well it's still popular with me. I've had a lot of help from members, not just on Flash queries but a whole lot of stuff, and I've made a few friends. I try to give a bit back in the Newbies forum. Long may it continue.

Well, I just to be a kind of helpfull members in the other forums, then the coffee lounge turned me into the social disgrace I am now.

No, after you spend some time here and get to know your flash, you become helpful, but it gets rather boring when you check the help forums and the same newbie questions are posted over and over and over and over and over.

I think that's what happens The old members have seen all possible types of threads already 20 times (how to do a preloader, my if isn't working, my php wants to kill me). Even in the coffee lounge the threads have become so unoriginal you don't feel like posting anymore.

That's what I think, eventually old members get tired of seeing the same things happening over and over and just move on to another forum that represents a new challenge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by argonauta

(how to do a preloader, my if isn't working, my php wants to kill me)

---

Lol im gulity of asking about the preloader, but dam it I couldent find a good working tutorial till I asked bout it here and someone pointed me to a good tutoiral. Google is great but its kinda hard to find good help cuz some tutorials arent that good. There needs to be like a flash wiki or some realy good source for flash newbies. Oh and dont even get me started on PHP, it realy dose want to kill me.

if only the google magicians could build a forum searching tool. The preloader is a perfect example. Yes it's been asked here a million times but what about narrowing down the results to exactly what your problem is ie. 'My preloader doesnt work and I think it's a scope problem.'

I think there's a general divide among web devs. Some like flash, most hate it. If there were another way, trust me, I'd use it.
I think once flash becomes better integrated into html and can respond to the back button, we'll get another flood of newbies. yippie

i dont know. i see it moving in the opposite direction. as soon as the public gets weened off the back button, sites will function more like interactive tv channels instead of templated documents.

i think admedia is right about the buzz dying a little for flash. there was initially a lot of excitement about flash because people (Joshua Davis for example) were doing things with it that not even macromedia anticipated. now that its gone through several generations of improvements its much more powerful but the newness factor has gone away somewhat. more powerful in many ways means more intimidating to new users. its not a bad thing, imo. just the maturing process of a technology and the establishment of an industry niche.

I miss the old days :(

You're back now E... so bring back some of the ol' days too.

It's not just about the back button, it's about linking, bookmarking, security paranoia and other factors. The internet will become more interactive and animated but I don't know if flash will be the solution, at least in its present form, and the 'gurus' at Macromedia have said time and again they don't want to change flash to work with a browser, but as a separate layer. Maybe Adobe will change their minds and produce a version of flash that doesn't break so many browser metaphor 'rules' and user expectations.

Standards based design has really soared the last couple of years, I think that coding with markup, javascript, CSS and the likes of PHP appeals to developers more than flash. A lot of people are using flash on the web only as a way of perking up pages, not for developing whole sites. Personally I think this is a much better use for it.

Flashkit is the old leviathan of web design communities, it's big, unwieldy and parts of it seem to be falling off. But still people come here and there are still a lot of reasons to do so. I miss the old days too.

I quit because my interests lay elsewhere and I was frustrated with the support for the community from the powers that be. Flashkit needs an overhaul, not a respray but an engine rebuild.

Enough metaphors already.

livemotion 2. ahem.

webcam avatars baby. That'll bring back the spice.

About what time did the old days end? I hope i was apart of it

What is live motion 2?

I did join here back in 2002 and got lost with MX along with other things and now im back into it but after a large gap. I mostly search now.

The problem i have found is the sheer limitless possibilities on how to code. I think it does need redone because i find it confusing searching AS2.0 stuff when its so mixed. I cant think of a solution to the problem, but even the movie thing above dont have a version 8 dropbox.

I still appriciate the time people take to reply and show me guidence but i was just thinking i always seen this as the place to be for my flash needs but now i feel lost. :(

Thanks

Adobe Livemotion... it was an attempt to create a Flash competitor before Adobe just bought Macromedia.

Either way, it was a joke meant for Aversion.

ahh :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aversion

Standards based design has really soared the last couple of years, I think that coding with markup, javascript, CSS and the likes of PHP appeals to developers more than flash. A lot of people are using flash on the web only as a way of perking up pages, not for developing whole sites. Personally I think this is a much better use for it.

---

Hasn't been my experience at all. The amount of available flash work has exploded here and in particular, more so for projects involving complete flash sites or applications. Not to say this is the case for all developers but, often times, I've found the objections to it to be based not on preference but simply that they don't like to leave their comfort zone to work in a different environment.

In the end, flash is still gaining ground because it can be used in so many ways. When it comes to stylizing interfaces and building web applications that actually feel like applications, no other technology is really competitive in terms of qualified workforce and turn-around time/cost.

if flash could get into the psp, xbox live and more mobile devices, it'd rule the world.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by argonauta

if flash could get into the psp, xbox live and more mobile devices, it'd rule the world.

---

its definitely working its way into the phone world and i read somewhere that xbox 360 is already set up to run it. also, its being used a lot for MediaCenter application interfaces. ive worked on two of those last year.

ok. maybe adobe should hire me as their flash cheerleader. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by indivision

Hasn't been my experience at all. The amount of available flash work has exploded here and in particular, more so for projects involving complete flash sites or applications. Not to say this is the case for all developers but, often times, I've found the objections to it to be based not on preference but simply that they don't like to leave their comfort zone to work in a different environment.

In the end, flash is still gaining ground because it can be used in so many ways. When it comes to stylizing interfaces and building web applications that actually feel like applications, no other technology is really competitive in terms of qualified workforce and turn-around time/cost.

---

It's not my experience, as you say.

Flash for applications isn't what I was talking about, flash for web sites is and either way you look at it when you use flash to create a complete web site you're compromising on functionality and user acceptance for flashy animation. There are times when this is an acceptable compromise, such as a video game site or a night club perhaps, but in my experience less and less people are using flash for complete sites and many of the 'classic' flash sites of the past 5 years have been redesigned as hybrids.

I would also argue that using flash for creating application interfaces on the web is also on the decline. Web applications as a whole have grown, and so thus has the number of them using flash, but from what I can see more and more web applications are using XHTML and remote scripting to create seamless interface experiences that act in the manner users expect the we *and* applications to work without relying on a page by page metaphor. Again with flash used for interfaces there are compromises and functionality that can't be applied. Again, there are instances where flashy animation might be more important than usability in a web application (online e-learning can be a good example of that), but flash can no longer claim to allow more interactivity in an interface than XHTML based design, it's simply not true anymore.

Macromedia have done nothing useful to tackle the problems with using flash on the web, which suggests to me they just don't care about that kind of usage. They're currently busy trying to push flash into the realm of 'proper' development with things like Flex. Macromedia gurus have said for years that flash isn't a replacement for web pages, hence the lack of browser functionality.

Flash is good for web 'widgets', 'brochure style presentations' and animated elements but I would certainly not consider it as an appropriate platform for a modern web site, and I think Macromedia would (privately) concur.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gerbick

livemotion 2. ahem.

---

Honestly, since moving I have no idea where it is!

geez.. I read that...and I felt like I was just told theres no Santa.. :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aversion

It's not my experience, as you say.

Flash for applications isn't what I was talking about, flash for web sites is and either way you look at it when you use flash to create a complete web site you're compromising on functionality and user acceptance for flashy animation. There are times when this is an acceptable compromise, such as a video game site or a night club perhaps, but in my experience less and less people are using flash for complete sites and many of the 'classic' flash sites of the past 5 years have been redesigned as hybrids.

I would also argue that using flash for creating application interfaces on the web is also on the decline. Web applications as a whole have grown, and so thus has the number of them using flash, but from what I can see more and more web applications are using XHTML and remote scripting to create seamless interface experiences that act in the manner users expect the we *and* applications to work without relying on a page by page metaphor. Again with flash used for interfaces there are compromises and functionality that can't be applied. Again, there are instances where flashy animation might be more important than usability in a web application (online e-learning can be a good example of that), but flash can no longer claim to allow more interactivity in an interface than XHTML based design, it's simply not true anymore.

Macromedia have done nothing useful to tackle the problems with using flash on the web, which suggests to me they just don't care about that kind of usage. They're currently busy trying to push flash into the realm of 'proper' development with things like Flex. Macromedia gurus have said for years that flash isn't a replacement for web pages, hence the lack of browser functionality.

Flash is good for web 'widgets', 'brochure style presentations' and animated elements but I would certainly not consider it as an appropriate platform for a modern web site, and I think Macromedia would (privately) concur.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whispers

geez.. I read that...and I felt like I was just told theres no Santa.. :(

---

There's no tooth fairy either :p

what the......?? have you no shame man?? ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aversion

Flash for applications isn't what I was talking about, flash for web sites is and either way you look at it when you use flash to create a complete web site you're compromising on functionality and user acceptance for flashy animation. There are times when this is an acceptable compromise, such as a video game site or a night club perhaps, but in my experience less and less people are using flash for complete sites and many of the 'classic' flash sites of the past 5 years have been redesigned as hybrids.

I would also argue that using flash for creating application interfaces on the web is also on the decline. Web applications as a whole have grown, and so thus has the number of them using flash, but from what I can see more and more web applications are using XHTML and remote scripting to create seamless interface experiences that act in the manner users expect the we *and* applications to work without relying on a page by page metaphor. Again with flash used for interfaces there are compromises and functionality that can't be applied. Again, there are instances where flashy animation might be more important than usability in a web application (online e-learning can be a good example of that), but flash can no longer claim to allow more interactivity in an interface than XHTML based design, it's simply not true anymore.

Macromedia have done nothing useful to tackle the problems with using flash on the web, which suggests to me they just don't care about that kind of usage. They're currently busy trying to push flash into the realm of 'proper' development with things like Flex. Macromedia gurus have said for years that flash isn't a replacement for web pages, hence the lack of browser functionality.

Flash is good for web 'widgets', 'brochure style presentations' and animated elements but I would certainly not consider it as an appropriate platform for a modern web site, and I think Macromedia would (privately) concur.

---

I disagree with most points you've made here. Not to be disrespectful or anything. I really am interested in this topic but please let me know if you're not interested in going over it. Not trying to be pesky.

There is a lot more to using flash than gaining 'flashy animations'. In addition to the robust functionality it offers, there are business and portability advantages as well. Flash is capable of doing just about anything other web technologies offer if not more and more easily accomplished.

I'm assuming that by sacrificed functionality you mean browser and link related functions. If society never adopted things that it didn't already 'expect', nothing would ever advance. I do agree that there is a certain advantage some web technologies have simply because they utilize what users have expected but that is about it. That doesn't mean that the expections reflect the best solutions. Personally, I find the standards you speak of to be clunky and restricting toward the goal of a quality user experience. Better solutions for state tracking and linking are possible and I believe will happen.

Regarding flash usage, it seems that we are both going on anecdotal personal experience as evidence unless you know of any studies or anything that show one way or the other? I dont have a problem with developers not liking flash because I know first-hand that the demand is going through the roof (complete flash sites included). So, that means more work for me. Maybe its a regional thing and there isnt a lot of flash work elsewhere. But, theres a major shortage of qualified flash programmers to meet the rising demand here while html/standards based programmers seem to be in abundance.

Macromedia has done everything possible to tackle what is most important for flash on the web. Maybe really really privately someone there thinks its not good for the web. But, the representatives Ive met from there certainly dont give that impression at all. Adobe doesn't seem to think that either by what they have said about their future plans for flash. Most importantly, clients (the ones Ive been around) dont seem to have a problem going with it.

Really, the only people Ive come across that downplay its use on the web are people with a history of html/standards based programming.

I have to disagree too. With sendandload vars and flash remoting, it is possible to run commerce via a flash page (without the need for useless flex). I guess what you're saying is, "Do we need to be able to actually drag and drop items in a shopping cart?"
No, but seeing your cart update without an entire page refresh would be nice. I realize XHTML can do that too but the ideas you layout in flash are at least easily expandable, ie animation and style changes. Flash just seems less limited in terms of imagination.
The bells and whistles arent needed, but like a good nike commercial, they help with your image.

I bring up back buttons because I have a thumb button on my mouse, its a mindless reflex to hit it to see what I was just looking at, and I even know not to. I shutter to think what goes through an average users mind.

Rebeling in the name of inovation is simply not a good enough reason to resist conforming to current standards.

From personal working experience the demand for Flash whether full site or hyrid is on the rise in both areas.

Having Flash design in my portfolio is an invaluable asset when pitching a client.

It's definitely a deal closer.

*edit: At the same time I am writing alot of php and making standards based design as well.

I believe the future of flash is being built at sites like YouTube and Google video (among others). That is delivering heavy media in a quick, smooth way. It will continue to power up sites with these sorts of applications and in some cases making them more visually attractive, but always as a secondary element.

That's why Flashkit and Flash are on a decline. Or better said, stabilizing.

:)

Are there any real statistics available somewhere that measure flash usage on the web? I don't see a decline. It seems to have filled voids for things that people once used director and javascript for.

dude... post somewhere else... that 420 post count and your avatar are still cracking me up.

You'd probably have to ask Macromedia/Adobe and Jakob Nielsen (however you spell that dude's name) about Flash use.

I think it's on the rise; I think communities are on the downfall. Flash is no longer this huge mystery any longer. It's something a designer and developer can both pick up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gerbick

dude... post somewhere else... that 420 post count and your avatar are still cracking me up.

You'd probably have to ask Macromedia/Adobe and Jakob Nielsen (however you spell that dude's name) about Flash use.

I think it's on the rise; I think communities are on the downfall. Flash is no longer this huge mystery any longer. It's something a designer and developer can both pick up.

---

lol. im clinging to that 420 count for as long as i can! :D

i agree completely about your assessment of communities, mystery and use. i just say the same thing in the most long-winded unreadable way possible. :)

You ask someone's opinion and that's usually what you get.

Neilson will be pushing his book and macromedia will be pushing product sales.

Flash doesn't have to be flashy in order to deliver quality content. The same can be said of dhtml/ajax or what ever media term has been cooked up for it today.

As far as flashkit popularity dying well.... Much of it has to do with both the expanding
presense of flash in the web and The expanding presense of portals both by corporate entites and enthusiats. When I first came to flashkit. There was only one forum for swish. At that time swish users were ostracised anytime we asserted that we used the product in ANY other forum but swish help. So many went elsewhere or created there own forums with the rise in popularity of free cms systems. I can easily list 20
sites with swish centric forums the top ten getting about the same amount of daily traffic as flashkit.

While flashkit has improved it's image there was a dark period (and I'm not just talking about swish users) which scared the rep for flashkit which was highlighted in various high profile trade magazines (as well as a few books)
This and other factors resulted in the movement away from flaskit.

Forums in general are on the down turn.

When it comes to flash technology.
Simply because there is a means for greater versatility does not insure that there is a
general public interest in it Take a look at some of the forums which don't generate
a lot of traffic.
Standalone and applications, Mobile devices, A D and D, XML
Proving you can lead a horse to water but that doesn't mean he'll drink it.


Frets

Quote:

---

i read somewhere that xbox 360 is already set up to run it

---

Got that right. It can.